Will ATARs go up this year?

[Google123]

Hi all,

Really stressed after assemblies at school and our careers counsellor told us that ATAR requirements are going to go up this year.
Is this true guys?
Does anyone have any solid evidence / past experiences of this?

I'm freaking out!! Please help!!

[jamonwindeyer]

What did they say the reasons were? Did they have evidence?

God I hate when schools use fear tactics like this without explaining the reasons for their claims 

[Google123]

What did they say the reasons were? Did they have evidence?

God I hate when schools use fear tactics like this without explaining the reasons for their claims 

I can ask if you want...but I absolutely became frozen when I heard those words out of our careers counsellor.
He's a pretty knowledgeable man and well informed.
I guess this gives him credibility??

But what do you think?

[jamonwindeyer]

I can ask if you want...but I absolutely became frozen when I heard those words out of our careers counsellor.
He's a pretty knowledgeable man and well informed.
I guess this gives him credibility??

But what do you think?

I think until he gives a substantiated reason besides 'they just will,' I'd not give it much thought (but then you could say the same about me, I'm a guy on the internet )

It is important to understand where ATAR cut offs come from. They aren't arbitrary, they are supply versus demand. Universities have X places for their course, and so X people get in - The ATAR cut-off for a course from 2018 is just the lowest ATAR which got into the course. So the ATAR cut-off for a course for 2019 is impossible to know with certainty, because it depends who applies.

There are definitely expected patterns, and things like bonus points and guaranteed entry schemes, these are a bit different. But the system above is the core of how cut-offs work. So I can't think of anything that a blanket claim like that could be based on besides just intuition or guesswork, because it's purely based on the applicants in a given year! Unless he, based on his networks, expects certain courses to be increasing in popularity, or he is watching trends. But a high modality, blanket statement like "ATAR cut-offs will go up," seems a bit unfair to me

tl;dr - Go ask how he knows if it is seriously messing with you! But I would just try and forget it was said in the first place, it won't change how you should be preparing and working

[Google123]

I think until he gives a substantiated reason besides 'they just will,' I'd not give it much thought (but then you could say the same about me, I'm a guy on the internet )

It is important to understand where ATAR cut offs come from. They aren't arbitrary, they are supply versus demand. Universities have X places for their course, and so X people get in - The ATAR cut-off for a course from 2018 is just the lowest ATAR which got into the course. So the ATAR cut-off for a course for 2019 is impossible to know with certainty, because it depends who applies.

There are definitely expected patterns, and things like bonus points and guaranteed entry schemes, these are a bit different. But the system above is the core of how cut-offs work. So I can't think of anything that a blanket claim like that could be based on besides just intuition or guesswork, because it's purely based on the applicants in a given year! Unless he, based on his networks, expects certain courses to be increasing in popularity, or he is watching trends. But a high modality, blanket statement like "ATAR cut-offs will go up," seems a bit unfair to me

tl;dr - Go ask how he knows if it is seriously messing with you! But I would just try and forget it was said in the first place, it won't change how you should be preparing and working

Thank you for this!
When do you come to find out when Universities increase their ATAR requirements?

Because won't people just study to meet the 2018 atar cut off and then it would be stupid to find out all of a sudden it's increased?

[jamonwindeyer]

Thank you for this!
When do you come to find out when Universities increase their ATAR requirements?

Because won't people just study to meet the 2018 atar cut off and then it would be stupid to find out all of a sudden it's increased?

The cut-offs are a guide, the university doesn't actually use them when deciding who gets into their courses! It is purely a "we'll give it to our best applicants" scenario. Maybe a course is super popular one year and has lots of strong candidates, the cut-off goes up. But it's not like a new cut-off is calculated then used, it is purely something that comes out of the process. Universities publish it to give you a rough idea where you might want to sit. But it's actually reasonably common to get in with an ATAR below the published cut-off for the previous year

[pha0015]

I have no technical knowledge whatsoever, but perhaps the potential rise in atar cutoffs might be due to an increasing amount of people doing vce, since the atar is a ranking. So say a course accepts the top 200 students every year (let's make this med). If everyone is trying to get into med, people with an atar above roughly 99.6 would get in (around 50,000 students doing vce). If suddenly 100,000 people do vce (just making the no big to make the change evident), the top 200 students would have an atar of 99.8 at least (taking 200/100000). However the change in people doing vce shouldn't change too such an extent that this would happen, so any change would be negligible.